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Review by salbrecht 
UPDATED: 2.2 years ago
member for 5.7 years, 20 visits, last login: 4.7 years ago
 Algonquin,Mchenry,IL
 $50 per month
 "Offer fast download and upload speeds; friendly techincal support"
 "Real performance disappointing"
 "Look elsewhere first."
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Review DLS Internet Services
950 Oak Street, Lake in the Hills, Illinois 60156
Unhappy Customer
DLS continues its downhill spiral. Originally signed up a few years ago
in 2004 for their 10 Mbps up/down service. Had installation issues
which I certainly hope have since been worked out. Speed was between
3-5 Mbps with a best recorded download of 6.5 Mbps. This deteriorated
to around 2 Mbps down/up. Called support multiple times and they
eventually just said the tower I use is incapable of providing a faster
connection. Interesting since they sell the 10/10 package to people
using that tower even though they offer a lesser package that is still
faster than 2 Mbps up/down. For this reason, I downgraded to the middle
tier package. No noticeable changes with typical down/up speeds around
2 Mbps but as low as 100-500 Kbps.
Note: latency has always been an issue. DLS claims that when pulling
data, latency times are fine. My testing indicated that there was some
truth to this. Regardless, connections that tested out better in terms
of latency also felt "snappier". My guess is that regular browsing did
not request data continuously enough to maintain the improved ping time
which was still slower than my IDSL connection from Speakeasy.
It's also important to note that DLS's service went down fairly
regularly. Outages were generally short but there were some multiple
day outages. DLS did not credit my account for those days. In
comparison, I had almost no outages with Speakeasy's IDSL service.
My recommendation is to try Comcast cable or a DSL service first.
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 Review by Moe Diddley
UPDATED: 2.5 years ago
member for 7.7 years, 1576 visits, last login: 9 days ago
North Aurora,Kane,IL
$65 per month
 about 14 days
"Great when it woks."
"Radio is in attic, pain to reset when needed. SLOW"
"Best thing available..til cable/dsl"
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Well, honeymoon was over a long time ago. I was posting updates as things changed, but it became a p.i.t.a! They were no longer able to provide service to my house effectively. Things went south so fast I just said forget about them and ordered Comcast. They were, to my knowledge the first to offer *cough.. high speed internet in the area so I was going to stick with them through rocky times. Ah well, on the bright side Comcast is working well. I was heavily into gaming but DLS.net kinda killed it for me. Now I'm thinking of going cheap on dsl.
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Review by AFrules
Posted: 4.9 years ago
member for 4.9 years, 4 visits, last login: 4.9 years ago
Lake In The Hills,Mchenry,IL
$65 per month
"Possibly the best you can get aside from a dedicated line."
"Invasion of privacy. ISP is so small they intrusively monitor all of your activity contrary to their written "privacy policy""
"Awesome ISP only if you wanna "goose-step" alongside these "content nazis.""
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Ok, I will first start by praising the quality and speeds that DLS offers. The rest of this posting is a warning to future and current DLS users.
DLS the most intrusive company in the business. They won't monitor your e-mails, but they WILL and ACTIVELY do monitor all of your TCP and UDP traffic. They know exactly what you download, all the way down to details such as file size, and EXACT file name. They also do this contrary to their own written policies. Here are the exact words from their Privacy Policy:
"DLS Internet monitors its servers to the extent necessary to ensure that high standards of maintenance are met. DLS Internet does not monitor or record your activities online. We do not monitor which web sites you visit or look at what you put in written communications such as e-mails, news articles, or chat rooms. DLS Internet considers your email to be just as personal and private as your US Postal Service mail. DLS staff will not look at or read your email unless it is necessary to resolve a technical issue. In almost all cases, we will clearly inform you of the need to do so, and we will seek your permission before opening your DLS Internet mailbox on our servers."
Another thing is that they won't even allow you to have a simple, text-only, graphic-free, html page on your desktop computer. They charge people soo much money already for service that they hired a bunch of strokes that sit behind desks in their tiny cubicles going over each IP they lease and check for every possible reason they could charge you double for services. What I'm talking about is the simple web page. These guys found that I had a stupid, single page, test html page running on my computer; it took them very little time to restrict my account. You want to know why? Well just go and look at their commercial prices.... they are double. And all you get with a commercial account is a few lines erased off of the usage policy. Well.... I'm a student, I'm not making money off of my non-operational web page, and does that make me a potential "commercial" customer? NO. DLS is just a bunch of greedy SOB's. For now they are riding on their success, but it will catch up with him when more of us will start complaining about their greediness and BIG-BROTHER activities.
I'm really don't mind that they limit bandwidth with their leaky-bucket algorithm. I believe that everyone deserves a fair share of the amazing speeds they offer. BUT, they are an Internet Service Provider, not the local Police or FBI. The word "internet" in their business description is not something they own and govern. They are just a point of presence and that’s all DLS should be concerned about.
Oh yea, I know a DLS employee will respond to this posting with DLS' rhetoric, possibly even try to research my identity. The reason I'm keeping this posting anonymous is simple; Lake in the Hills is a small town, and DLS is the evil sheriff, so I don't want them to further mess with my account, until I change ISP's.
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Review by PappaSiera
Posted: 5.5 years ago
member for 5.5 years, 4 visits, last login: 5.4 years ago
Lake In The Hills,Mchenry,IL
$65 per month
"ANYTHING is better than dial up"
"Shoddy Installation Damages House!"
"Up in the air"
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I had DLS wireless installed on 5/21/04. During the installation, the installer was having problems getting the cable to go down the wall and out my jack. After three attempt, the cable finally made it down. Everything appeared to be working great.
The next day, my wife discovered two gashes in the top of the wall and saw dust on the floor in the guest room which shares a wall with my office. I immediately called DLS to report the problem, and received a call back within 15 minutes. The tech first stated that they would send someone out with spackle and patch the holes. I informed him that the damage was more sever than what could be repaired with just filler; the gashes are 3/4" wide and up to 3 inches long. One of the gashes has gone through and lifted the top seal mud tape, NOT a good thing! The tech told me that he would have a supervisor call me on Monday (5/24/04) at my office.
At 1:30PM on Monday, after not hearing anything from DLS, I called in and asked that someone call me at my office. I never received a call. Someone did call my home, and talked to my nephew, who happens to be a contractor and is painting the interior of my house this week. That individual again stated that they would be out with spackle to patch the 'hole'. My nephew informed them that it will take more than spackle to do the job. The caller stated that they would be out 'sometime' this week and that they would call on Tuesday, 5/25/04, to schedule a visit. My nephew gave them my work number and told them to call me.
Well, it is now 10:13 PM on Tuesday, and STILL I, the OWNER of the house, have not heard from anyone, except the tech I talked to on Saturday, even though both my nephew and I have given my work number several times. I understand that there is a lot of work going on, due to the storms, but I think that damage to a house should warrant a call from someone in management to ME to explain exactly what they intend to do to resolve this issue. To top it all off, I received a customer satisfaction survey for my CLOSED ticket! Are they just hopping that this will go away? If I don't hear from them by this time tomorrow, I will be contacting a drywall contractor, and a painter, and I think you know where the bill will be going.
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DLS Internet Services
